The Five Second Rule: Myth or Fact?
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Rule Put to the Test
Last summer, Jillian Clarke, a high school student doing an apprenticeship at Hans Blaschek's University of Illinois laboratory decided to test the validity of the 5-second rule. Clarke first surveyed 100 college students (50 male, 50 female) to see what they knew about the rule. Of those surveyed, 70% of the women and 56% of the men were familiar with and had used the 5-second rule. Cookies and candies were much more likely to be picked up and eaten than items such as cauliflower or broccoli. Clarke then took swab samples from floors around campus to determine bacterial counts. The floors were surprisingly clean. Next, Clark inoculated rough and smooth floor tiles with E. coli bacteria. She placed Gummy Bears and fudge striped cookies on the inoculated floor tiles for 5 seconds, then examined the foods under a high-powered microscope. Her findings showed that in all cases E. coli was transferred from the tile to the food, demonstrating that microorganisms CAN be transferred from ceramic tile to food in 5 seconds or less. Clark found that more E. coli was transferred from smooth tiles than from rough tiles and that both the dry cookies and the gummy bears became contaminated with only 5 seconds of contact with the inoculated tiles.